


Falter

by mothman_is_my_girlfriend



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Adam is mentioned, M/M, in which Crowley is all bark and no bite
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 18:06:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19234366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothman_is_my_girlfriend/pseuds/mothman_is_my_girlfriend
Summary: Relationships were tricky for humans. Especially the beginnings of them. They stumbled and faltered, not sure what to do or say. Why would it be any different for an angel and a demon who are notoriously bad at expressing themselves?Or, alternatively, Crowley is a flustered mess, (All bark and no bite!) and irony is a bitch.(On hold for now. Will resume soon now that quarantine is a thing.)





	Falter

**Author's Note:**

> Bear with me, please. I haven't written anything substantial in years and years, but this show just affected me so much, that I had to.
> 
> Crowley may seem... out of character, here, but that's purely because I have the feeling that despite pining for 6,000 years, he was never actually prepared for anything to happen. For now I'm planning on two chapters, but there may be a third if I'm feeling bold. (Rating may change later)
> 
> Not beta read, so some errors may have slipped through.  
> Thanks for reading!

**Falter**

 

Last week, the world nearly ended. But only nearly; and only the handful of people who were present at Tadfield airbase last week were aware of that fact. 

Last week, the world nearly ended, and now, Crowley couldn’t sleep.The demon had spent the last several hours tossing and turning, playing out the events of the past week in his mind. It was infuriating - Crowley loved to sleep, and now that he had the gift of indefinite time stretching out before him, he couldn’t. Grumbling ominously, he threw the sheets off himself and onto the floor, and stalked out of his bedroom into his ‘study’.

Crowley used the term ‘study’ very loosely for this room. It had an empty desk with a small globe, no books, because he rarely read anything other than a newspaper or mindless clickbait articles online, (he’d been rather proud of inventing clickbait, too) and of course, his extravagant throne. There was also the massive screen built into the wall, and he snapped his thin fingers, turning it on, and settled in to blankly stare at the news channel while he worked through his thoughts.

Just last week, he had thought his best friend dead. Just last week he’d swallowed his pride and nearly fallen to his knees begging said best friend to run off with him into the stars to survive the end of the world. 

And then it didn’t. 

And now they were back to where they were; back to where they had been for over 6,000 years. The only difference was that now, they no longer had to hide their - friendship? Relationship? Crowley wasn’t exactly sure what to label their strange dynamic, but he certainly enjoyed the angel’s company. Aziraphale always had a penchant for saying that their relationship with one another was ‘ _ineffable_.”

Ineffable. _Ugh_. Crowley hated the word.

For starters, Aziraphale used it entirely too much, and always had, even since The Beginning. Secondly, how was one supposed to express in words how meaningful someone or something was to them, when, by its very definition, was ineffable; unable to be put into words? And thirdly, Crowley hated that the concept of something being undefinable; something unable to be put into words, had a word for it. He rather disliked hypocrisies. Granted, he had invented the damned things, yet disliked them nonetheless. But what was being a demon, if your own creations of mild annoyances didn’t come back to bite you in the ass?

Crowley blinked, his eyes dry from staring at the news for a few minutes without reprieve, and glanced at a bottle of wine placed temptingly on the edge of the desk, but didn’t reach for it. To be honest, he’d had little interest in alcohol since the night before the Apocalypse-That-Wasn't, when he’d gotten hammered. His stomach churned as he recalled the conversation with Aziraphale he’d had.

_“I lost my best friend!” Crowley had nearly sobbed, embarrassingly, into his drink, grateful that his glasses hid his eyes._

_Aziraphale’s projection had been so hard to read in that moment, or maybe he had just been that drunk. “Oh,” the angel had said softly, “I’m sorry to hear that.”_

Thin fingers tapped on the desk absently. Had Aziraphale known that Crowley was talking about him? That he was his best friend? That Crowley hadn’t left for Alpha Centauri because, without him, it wasn’t worth it? Then again, there was hardly any reason in dissecting what had actually been said. Very little of their conversations actually happened on the surface level. But that was partially on him, too, wasn’t it? Honesty - which required Vulnerability - always left a sour taste in his mouth.

_“You go too fast for me, Crowley.”_

Aziraphale had most certainly _not_ been talking about his driving, back then. But if that simple sentence meant that he also felt the strange need to be around him, the strange pull in his chest… Crowley didn’t know. Only days before, the angel had sat across from him at the Ritz, leaning closer than ever before into his space; smiling a genuine smile, laughing at his jokes without a care in the world. But they did not talk about it, and it left Crowley longing to drop the pretext of the subtext in their conversations with one another.

The ancient answering machine next to him rang, jolting him out of his thoughts, and he snapped the screen into silence.

“Crowley,” he answered bluntly.

“Oh! Good morning, Crowley!” Came Aziraphale’s cheery voice from the other line, “I was wondering if you were still stopping by this morning for breakfast?”

Right. They had made plans. “Uh. Yeah. Sure,” Crowley answered shortly, tripping over his own words. Satan, he was tired. Dragging a hand over his face, he continued, “I could use some coffee.”

 

\--

Crowley suppressed a shudder as he walked into the old bookshop. The last time he had been here was when he had been occupying Aziraphale’s body, and before that, when it was aflame. He tossed the keys to the Bentley carelessly on the front counter and tried to forget the smell of burning books.

Aziraphale came round the corner of one of the shelves a moment later, his beaming smile entirely too bright for this early hour, and Crowley made a point to scowl at him for that, even if it was the highlight of his day so far.

“Oh, dear,” the angel hummed in greeting, “You really do look like you could use coffee, Crowley. I’ll go fetch you a cup,” and he ducked into the back of the shop once more, as quickly as he had come. The demon hesitated, glancing at the books that had been ash mere days ago, the memory still fresh in his mind, and decided to follow Aziraphale. Best to keep him in his sight, he decided, just in case something happened to him - the demon definitely did not follow the angel because his presence soothed him, no, not at all.

Aziraphale was fiddling with a coffee maker when Crowley wandered into the kitchen, frowning at it in deep concentration. “Do you want sugar in your coffee, Crowley?” he asked, only half turning to him.

“Not today, angel,” Crowley replied, sitting down at the little booth in the corner. He’d had enough of sugary coffee for a while, he decided, after inventing those ridiculously expensive and sugary drinks that had less caffeine than a much cheaper drink. He’d been rather proud of that idea.

“Well, alright then,” said Aziraphale, and he set a plain mug in front of Crowley as he went about making his own drink, probably something sweet, he thought. The angel always did like sweet things. Crowley glared at the black coffee, longing to pour whiskey into it and make it an Irish coffee. (The Irish - those buggers really did know their way around whiskey.) He really did need the caffeine, though, so instead he took a still-scalding sip and watched Aziraphale tinkering in the kitchen absently. So absently, in fact, that he hardly noticed when the angel sat down beside him in the booth and began chattering about the new books Adam had materialized into his shop.

“Crowley, are you alright?” Aziraphale asked, concerned. “You’ve been so quiet all morning, and you’ve hardly touched your coffee.”

Crowley started, looking down at his rapidly cooling coffee to find that, yes, he had hardly drank any of it. Aziraphale watched him closely, worry behind his eyes. “I’m just tired, angel,” Crowley said after a long moment. “Haven’t been sleeping very well since the world didn’t end.”

“Ah,” Aziraphale said primly, “But.. you rather enjoy sleep, don’t you? You slept for nearly a hundred years after our whole spat with the - well, you know…” he trailed off.

Crowley glowered at the angel, because, yes, he did know. It was one of the reasons that hadn’t been able to sleep, among other things. _You go too fast for me, Crowley. You go too fast for me. Crowley. You go too -_

“I’ve been thinking about the fire,” Crowley said instead; words tumbling out of his mouth on their own accord. In the process of veering away from one emotional topic, he’d also veered dangerously close to another, somehow even _more_ emotional topic. “What exactly happened with that?”

Aziraphale paused, trying to find the right words. “Well, in short, I accidentally walked through the gate to heaven.”

“How does that explain the fire?” Crowley squinted at him, “and how did you _accidentally_ walk through a gate to heaven?”

“I, ah, may have forgotten to blow some candles out,” Aziraphale said, as if that explained the whole ordeal; pointedly ignoring answering the second question, for there truly were no words to describe the oddity that was Mr. Shadwell. 

Crowley was still squinting at him. After a long moment, he added, “Why do you care so much about the fire, anyway?”

The demon resumed staring at his coffee, and Aziraphale pressed him further. “Crowley?” he asked gently. Crowley grit his teeth. He despised how easily being gentle came to the angel.

“I thought Hastur and Ligur had gotten to you,” Crowley admitted, voice thick, “I thought it was hellfire.”

Aziraphale’s hands stilled on his cup. “Oh,” he said simply, “That’s why you were at that bar, isn’t it? You really thought you had lost me, you thought that I’d -”

“Don’t say it,” Crowley hissed, eyes flashing behind his glasses.

“I’d never seen you like that before,” Aziraphale said finally, quietly, “You were so miserable.”

“I was talking about you, you know.” Crowley said quietly, looking up from his coffee, glasses abandoned on the table.

“I - sorry?” Aziraphale stuttered. He _did_ know, he just hadn’t been expecting this conversation, and not so soon.

“When I said I lost my best friend. I thought you were gone forever. So I just… decided to drink the end of the world away,” Crowley said, and there was the familiar bile on his tongue that came with being honest. It was sickening.

“ _Oh, Crowley_ ,” Aziraphale sighed sympathetically, leaning forward, “Everything is alright. I’m fine. I was just discorporated, is all. But I’m good as new now.” Crowley held his gaze for a moment, and Aziraphale brushed his hand against his in a comforting gesture. Crowley’s eyes darted to where their skin made only the barest of contact.

_Burning_. It felt like his skin was burning.The room suddenly felt cramped, as if the walls were closing in on the demon, and his pulse roared in his ears. Leave. He had to leave. Crowley stood abruptly, his lanky figure tipping over the two steaming mugs. The warmth felt like nothing compared to the fire racing up and down his arm right now.

“I have to go.” Crowley said sharply, and squeezed himself past Aziraphale, racing out of the door faster than some humans could see. Outside, the Bentley sputtered to life, and roared away, leaving a very confused, very worried angel in its wake.

Crowley swore as he raced through the streets of London at an even more brutal pace than usual. He could still feel the burning in his hand like an after image.

_You go too fast for me, Crowley. You go too fast for me, Crowley. You go too-_

Irony sure was a bitch, wasn’t it?


End file.
